The Entertainment system is back, and… DirecTV is a #FAIL

This is a heads-up for anyone that’s been seeing Pink on their HDMI connected TVs

It appears that the Bose system wasn’t broke to begin with.

On the plus side the unit has been updated to the most current level of software and checked out by the factory.  It’s nice to know that Bose still stands behind their products 4 years later.

I got the unit back on Tuesday, I actually installed it yesterday and almost immediately had the problem I’d sent the unit in for.

I thought, “SHIT! I’m going to have to go through this whole process again.”Before I yanked the whole mess out again, I figured I’d contact Bose and see if they could give me any insight into why the hell the system was still broken.

I got ahold of a really nice guy back Massachusetts (I’m guessing from the accent) and he helped me out with a number of settings and other questions.

But, and this is the really interesting part… He said that they didn’t have a fix for the Pink Wash I was seeing when I switched to satellite TV.

He informed me that I was one of the first customers to report the issue and that since I’d initially called to send my unit back they’d been sort of inundated with calls about the same issue.

It turns out the problem was introduced by a software update from DirecTV.

Apparently DirecTV did something that screwed up the HDMI signal in such a way that it’s taken not only Bose surround sound systems offline, but a number of other manufacturers units as well.

Turns out, if you connect the satellite box directly to the TV there is no problem.  If you have your satellite box connected to some surround sound systems and then the surround system connected to the TV you see a dark pink wash over the entire TV image.

This of course leads the consumer to swap cables, and ultimately send their surround sound system in for un-needed repairs. I looks like you’ve got a bad HDMI port, especially since when you pull the surround sound system out of the equation everything works fine.

Unknown

So DirecTV cost me $165.00 and a LOT of inconvenience because they didn’t properly test their software.

I’m going to be calling them and asking for a free month of service. Why should I pay for HBO, Showtime, OR pay a premium to DirecTV for HD in the first place when I’m not getting all the services I’ve paid for?

I doubt that I’m going to get it but at least it will register the complaint.

I find myself once again revisiting the issue of simply discontinuing the satellite altogether. If I could put a TV antenna on the roof and get local stations… I’d kill the satellite in a heartbeat.